


Failure Analysis

by Ladyofwarandmercy



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
Genre: Death Star, Gen, Imperial Officers (Star Wars), Post-Battle of Yavin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 01:59:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyofwarandmercy/pseuds/Ladyofwarandmercy
Summary: Takes place right after A New Hope, where the Imperials have analyzed what happened at Yavin, and by extension, at Scarif. A nervous Imperial Lieutenant has to deliver some bad news to Darth Vader.





	

The Lieutenant gave her notes one more go-over before Vader walked into the room. Per protocol, Talana Freel stood as the Sith Lord walked in, bowed slightly, and sat after he took his seat. The only color on Freel besides the markings on her uniform was her bright, red hair, which was scraped back into a bun. Otherwise, Freel looked plain and unremarkable. Given her profession, she did not go out of her way to improve her appearance. She likely would have licked off any lipstick today anyway, out of sheer nerves.

“You are nervous, Lieutenant Freel? Where is Lieutenant Aldona?”

“Sir-er-Lord Vader,” to her credit she met his masked eyes with her own nearly colorless blue eyes, “Aldona is from Alderaan, and we had to lock her up, um, considering.” Vader nodded, and Freel continued, “Which brings me to the first bit of bad news. One of the casualties at Alderaan was unfortunately Colonel Elona Meerash. She was visiting family on Alderaan, when---”

“---When that fool Tarkin blew up a major Imperial planet, removing very useful doubts about the Death Star's existence,” Vader interrupted, “And giving our...friends on Yavin enough warning to be prepared for its arrival. What would you have done differently, Freel?” Vader finished. Freel shifted nervously and her eyes widened for a moment, caught completely off-guard by the question. Vader motioned her to answer.

She took a breath and tentatively gave her opinion: “Yavin was on the list of the ten likeliest sites Meerash herself had compiled. I would have sent a scouting droid to each suspect system. In fact, I would not have used the Death Star at Scarif. Our spies within the so-called Rebel Alliance had assured us that certain factions were not even sure of the Death Star's existence. The Rebel mission to Scarif was apparently unauthorized at first, but later backed up by the rest of the Alliance. To be fair, the movements of Ninth Division to Scarif, as we like to say, smelled like the proverbial coolant leak. Or rather was enough smoke that even the doubters began to wonder if there was a fire. In any case, everybody got a good look at the Death Star. There were no doubters by the time the Death Star destroyed Alderaan.”

Vader nodded, approving. “Indeed. I would say, though, that many of those who claimed not to believe in the Death Star's existence were more motivated by denial than ignorance. They wanted there not to be a Death Star, and they needed so little to hold on to their denial. It would be tearing the Rebel Alliance to shreds, at least until the actual Death Star would have had a chance to finish the job.” Vader pounded on the table in frustration. “But Tarkin had his toy.” Imperceptibly, Freel rolled her eyes a little and nodded. Vader took a louder-than-usual breath to re-center. 

In that moment, Vader learned something he had never realized about women before. Men to women were boys obsessed with toys. In blundering into his point about Tarkin, he had scored a point with Freel, a point he could use to get some honesty from this officer. “In any case,” he continued, “Meerash would have had to be purged, and nobody was looking forward to that. I might have had to do it myself. You said you had more bad news for me?”

Freel steeled herself and pushed forward a data chip. “Lord Vader,” she said awkwardly, “What has me nervous is....well, I'll have to just say it. Whether or not you can read my mind, I owe you the truth. To be blunt, I am not sure what kind of an education in engineering one gets as a Sith Lord. Before I went into the Intelligence Directorate, I was getting a First Degree in engineering at Corellian Technical University. I wouldn't know The Force from an allergic reaction myself. But what the failure analysis from Yavin sounds like to the....uninitiated sounds like a lot of excuse-making. But I assure you it isn't.”

Vader nodded, and an unease crept up in the room. “I rebuilt a protocol droid from sand-caked spare parts when your mother was still playing with baby dolls. I assure you I am not a technological imbecile!” Freel nodded, and unflappably replied, “Then you will want to look at Versions Dom or Esk for the technical details.” She sat in silence as Vader read the relevant files. Without telling her, Vader started with Aurek first, just to see what Freel's skills at “dumbing down” the relevant details were in comparison with the more precise but jargon-filled Dom and Esk versions. Palpatine had taught him ten lifetimes' worth about the Dark Side, but the man needed a call in to find the power button on the communications array three days a week, it seemed. Aurek hit the highlights and explained them well enough without the excuse-making Freel feared. Dom and Esk went into more detail. 

Apparently, Galen Erso's engineering had somehow managed to exceed the limits of known physics. The Erso Engine worked, but nobody could figure out the scientific reason it worked, including Erso himself. Vader remembered being given the VIP tour, and feeling no special pull of the Force from the device. Which ruled out the Force as the means by which it worked, so he was completely in agreement with the analysis that the Erso Engine worked by some completely mundane physical property that science had not yet discovered. And if they didn't know completely how it worked, they could not fix the instability inherent in the Erso Engine, or find something that performed all of the functions the Erso Engine did. 

Vader especially liked Freel's likening of the Erso Engine in the report to the old “Magic Dust” hyperdrive. As a child, Anakin Skywalker learned to read from a discarded textbook on the history of the Human emergence from the homeworld of Coruscant. The first hyperdrive was as much a triumph of engineering over science as the Erso Engine, and was nicknamed the “Magic Dust” drive, because even the finest physicists of the time could only explain its function with a joke that magic dust was somehow involved. The “Magic Dust” drive was unreliable, and often took its user off course. Even thousands of years later, the Empire was running across Humans whose ancestors settled where the drive had actually taken them, rather than where they had filed their Colonization Permit. It took about 200 years before enough was understood about hyperspace itself and the way a hyperdrive accelerated an object into hyperspace to dare improve on the concept and make it more reliable. 

“So,” he began after finishing the report, “Our choices are either to take the Death Star project offline for an unacceptable number of years to find something more stable than the Erso Engine reactor. Or we'd have to re-design the thermal venting system, and keep the next construction a better-kept secret, making the logistics of building another Death Star even more of a nightmare.” Vader punctuated this with a rub of his mask's nose. Freel nodded grimly in agreement, and added, “Lord Vader, Galen Erso left us no good options here. Damn him to all nine Hells. Sequentially. If we build another Death Star, we will be forced to do it even further off the trade routes than Jedha was.” Vader finished her thought, “Which will make supplying the workers even more of a nightmare. We would have to begin yet another expensive project a few jumps away to justify the amount of materials being moved to such a sparsely-populated part of the galaxy.” Vader could see a slight smile across Freel's face, as she could appreciate the idea, and the wheels started turning in her own head. But presently, she frowned and said without thinking, “Why are we going to build another Death Star after the problems with this last one?”

Vader often wondered this himself, but thought back to his lessons on tactics and “doomsday weapons.” He thought for a moment, then explained,“The Death Star forces us into a strategy whereby we now must complete it, flaws and all. The Rebels know we can do it, they know we will do it, and if we don't do it, we lose our advantage of having this kind of weapon available to us. The thought we may build another will keep them from doing anything with the plans of ours they stole from Scarif and coming after us. Make the security arrangements, find some boondoggle to fully fund. And I will make a request. The next time they have bad news for me, I will request they send you. They might even remember to do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I based the idea on the "Impossible Drive," where engineering has gotten ahead of physics. REMEMBER: In Return of the Jedi, Palpatine decided to use the un-finished Death Star as bait for a Rebel attack. If the new Death Star were complete, they fully intended to keep a repeat of Yavin from happening.


End file.
